Jim’s right. Resisting a semiviolent urge to quote Hall and Oates, I’ll add that the big question as far as I’m concerned was thrown into fairly stark relief by Jeb Hensarling at the latest AmSpec Newsmaker Breakfast, who more or less conceded the point when asked whether Congressional Republicans consider the war — whichever, whenever — so important that an indefinite increase in social entitlement spending is a concession worth surrendering to Democrats. In a cruel irony, it strikes me that a large chunk of Americans actually agree in practice with this position — meaning they don’t want to make precipitous changes to either our foreign or domestic policy. Yet Republicans, on this count, are in serious danger of being painted into their own corner. Given the prevailing wisdom, put paid by a skittish and irresponsible American electorate, it’s so easy to talk ‘sacrifice’ instead of ‘tough choices’ that Republicans seem ready to accept an eternal fiscal yeasaying competition with Democrats as long as they think they hold the high ground on patriotism — a recipe for disaster if I’ve ever heard one.
